Eugene Huang appointed Virginia's Secretary of Technology

Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) appointed Eugene Huang the state's secretary of technology
last month after George C. Newstrom, 57, resigned the post. Huang, 28, who had been
Newstrom's deputy, is the youngest state cabinet member in the nation.

Reports Shannon Henry, since Huang took over he has spoken to crowds at least three times a
week, not the easiest undertaking for the most introverted of introverts (according to personality
tests he has taken). Preparing for the New York City Marathon this weekend, the lanky Cabinet
secretary is trying to eat more to keep up his calories.

Working with Newstrom, Huang helped refocus the Center for Innovative Technology, which
over the past few years has lost funding and struggled to define its mission. Now the CIT focuses
primarily on nanotechnology, biotechnology and homeland security, Huang says. Huang hopes to
address what he sees as Virginia's biggest technology problem -- the lack of a world-class
research institution, such as Stanford University or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
which helped define the technology meccas of Northern California's Silicon Valley and Boston's
Route 128, respectively. One of Huang's other projects is to use government resources to bring
high-speed Internet access to areas of the state that don't have it. (Source: Shannon Henry,
Washington Post, Nov. 4, 2004).